Seattle’s police chief Carmen Best resigns
Seattle’s Carmen Best could read the writing on the wall that told her the City Council was determined to cut the legs out from under the police, and to personally punish her as well. So Best – the first black woman to head Seattle’s police force – has resigned. And who could blame her? Certainly not me.
Hours after Seattle police Chief Carmen Best announced her retirement, Mayor Jenny Durkan lashed out at the City Council Tuesday morning following its decision Monday to defund her department by 14 percent.
Durkan noted that the council never asked for or received input from the police as council members were considering what and how to cut the current spending plan as part of the panel’s effort to reimagine the city budget.
“It’s not about the money, it’s about the respect,” said Durkan, who said the council tellingly did not cut the salaries of any other municipal department heads or its own staff. “It was infuriating and deeply disappointing.”
Durkan’s remarks came after Best announced her decision to the city during an 11 a.m. news conference in which she thanked the mayor, her staff, the city and its residents.
“This was a decision I wrestled with, but it was time,” Best said. “I will always be a police officer. It’s who I am. But when it’s time to go, it’s time to go.”
They also cut Best’s salary. The article goes on to say that it wasn’t cut “much” compared to last year, but I saw another article last night that said it was cut by 40%. I don’t know which is true, but at any rate that’s only a small part of the nasty and short-sighted actions of the city’s far-leftist City Council.
Best’s resignation of Best is symbolic, too, because it means that the city loses a black police chief, a member of the group the whole thing is supposedly meant to benefit but does not. In addition, the layoffs on the police force will come from newer hires, who are disproportionately minority members as well.
And who will suffer from increased crime? Well, everyone, but probably the minority communities will suffer most.
Best said it – well, best (and note the repetitive use of that word):
“Why on Earth – for the people who’ve worked so very hard – would we ever consider not having the best of the best and compensating them fairly?” Best said in a press conference in response to the cuts. “I find that absolutely shocking and quite frankly – I think it’s punitive and not well thought out. And that’s exactly how I feel about it.”
It is of course punitive and “not well thought out” if “well thought out” implies that those doing this have the welfare of the city at heart. But they do not. Activist leftists have a different goal, which is to serve their own ideology no matter how much the people suffer. Some – the more idealistic among them – think that some day the results will be an improvement, after a certain period of difficulty for all. Others – the non-idealistic among them, who may indeed be more numerous than the others – could not care less. They are in service of attaining power for themselves, and their goal is the equal sharing of misery for everyone else.
[NOTE: Not exactly on-topic but related.]
It seems hers is at least one of those Black Lives that doesn’t really Matter to the Seattle City Council.
It’d be a shame if half her officers called in sick this week & went on a job hunting spree elsewhere.
What a shame for Seattle. I am distressed that she needed to resign, but support her wholeheartedly and congratulate her for her decision. Seattle did not deserve her. I’m sure job offers from responsible cities will be plentiful.
I’m assuming she will interview the city council carefully when she chooses a new place to land. Nothing good comes when a city council will not support law and order.
See ‘method to rioters madness’ post below.
For some reason the hard left wants to destroy the downtown shopping districts of Major American cities. And the soft left ‘limousine liberals’ don’t seem to think it matters.
The bien pensant progressive white majority of Seattle’ citizens voted these folks in. So did the minority population. And Seattle residents gave Antifa and other radicals a pass for quite some time.
They deserve everything they get.
Violence has just now begun to spill over into white suburban areas. The timing means that the experience and images will be fresh in citizens’ minds come November. G-d has a great sense of humor.
Slightly OT (but not really)…below is a link to a blog post (on his personal blog) by Cliff Mass, a UW professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences. A man of the left to-be-sure, but sane.
He took a walk through the Seattle downtown CORE last week (not CHAZ…err, Capitol Hill) and posted pictures/descriptions of what he saw. Had his local NPR weekly weather show cancelled as a result (blog post about that supposedly coming).
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/08/seattle-city-in-fear-can-be-restored.html
FWIW, I live in the northern exurbs. Life here is returning to normal despite any pronouncements from Olympia. Stores mostly open (though masks required), traffic returning to normal, people going about their business. Was talking to the owner of the local franchise hardware store a couple days ago…lots of supply chain issues, but they’ve already surpassed their normal revenue for the year. So not all small businesses are suffering.
Leftists claim to love “the people” but don’t seem to care much about actual individual people.
Since Democrat voting strength is now in the large urban areas, taking steps to destroy or to condone the destruction of the big cities looks extraordinarily stupid.
A perfect omelet has never been made, so let’s try again Seattle, Portland, and Chicago. ;(
[NOTE: Not exactly on-topic but related.]
I saw that too this morning…this isn’t going to stop until some of these violent criminals are dead in the streets or swinging from lamp posts.
I can’t imagine that a resurgence of Wild West justice is going to be fair & impartial, but it will be swift & it might just be effective in the short term. If you’d have asked me if I ever thought in my lifetime…
Chief Best has been in the police dept. for 28 years and will probably be receiving a pension of over $100,000 a year. She probably doesn’t want to participate in the coming disaster.
She might want to participate in running for Mayor.
Gerald – with Seattle’s city council no sane person would want the mayor’s office. Sad but true.
So: Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best resigns after 28 years with the department. The mostly-white City Council has hounded its female black Chief of Police out of office as an act of ‘racial justice’ in a city torn up by supposed Black Lives Matter issues; by cutting her pay, defunding her force, evicting Federal Law Enforcement assistance, and refusing to denounce the numerous BLM/Antifa occupations, destructions of property, marches, public harassments, riots, and looting episodes over the past few months.
Welcome to Seattle! Gateway to the Pacific. I wonder how voters will react in November. There was quite a showing of support for the Chief outside of City Hall this morning.
No surprise here, but what does that tell you about the power of ideology? Not even a qualified black woman is safe.
Chicago, not Seattle, but part of the Zeitgeist.
Conservative Black speaker, Adventist Hermes Justin Wilson.
Makes all of the points that sane people recognize.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnh3Ekg3ho8
Chicago Riots Embarrass Democrats Because they have No One to Blame But Black People
70,030 views•Aug 11, 2020
h/t commenter at this LI post:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/08/chicago-black-lives-matter-leader-declares-looting-gucci-and-macys-is-reparations/
Sooo – if Antifa and BLM destroy enough businesses, does that mean we can consider the reparations bill paid in full and close that topic?
At least the San Luis Obispo PD is throwing sand into the gears of the BLM machine:
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/08/11/california-blm-organizer-charged-with-5-felonies-following-july-protest/
“The article goes on to say that it wasn’t cut “much” compared to last year, but I saw another article last night that said it was cut by 40%.”
Indeed, before Monday’s Council meeting the salary cut was announced by the Council as 40%. During the meeting, it got changed somehow, but (no thanks to the Seattle Times) there’s no record of how that was brought about. A subsequent Times article did casually mention the new, minor cut, in a way that obliterated all previous mention of the forty-percenter. In short, some misleading journalism of which any ‘people’s government’ under rigid authoritarian control would be proud.
Politically and journalistically, Seattle is not at all in good hands these days.
Politically and journalistically, Seattle is not at all in good hands these days.
Insufficiently Sensitive: Likewise Portland, Minneapolis, etc.
This is something I didn’t see coming either. That Democratic mayors and governors would let their major cities burn with nightly riots going on for months.
In comparison the riots after MLK’s assassination in 1968 were mostly over in a week and were mostly by blacks, not by Antifa whites who had already threatened urban violence.
No, not in even in 1968 were Democrats going to let their cities burn this way. Bad for the cities and bad for Democrats to be re-elected. I still think Democrats have miscalculated in terms of the 2020 elections. We shall see.
huxley:
That is what happens when you believe your own propaganda. As Andrew Klavan has pointed out form his experience if you really want to get an insane person frothing with rage try telling them about reality.
“Riots are not good for your own locality and potential voters.
We need more and bigger riots! Elections don’t matter! Burn it all down!
But you will be outnumbered and killed.
Can’t happen! Burn it all down!”
Chiefless in Seattle.
And there’s a potential sequel:
https://nypost.com/2020/08/13/seattle-mayor-turns-to-supreme-court-to-stop-ouster-over-protests/
Soon to be playing in Portland? In SF? In LA?
West coast blues?. Could it be the tectonic instability that reinforces the madness.